Guild Wars 2

Hey all,

Couple of quick questions for the Chronomancers who’ve been in the Thorns beta.

Which 1H weapon works best with the shield and why?

What are your thoughts on Chronomancers? Better/worse than classic Mesmer builds?

Thank you!

Chronomancer is pretty much Mesmer 2.0.

The Chono traitline (and new utilities) open up strong options for Mesmer support (via control/boons) in PvE/PvP while wells and Shield allow us to do meaningful damage in zergs in WvW. You lose almost nothing by jumping to Chrono (except a traitline), and gain more diversity and flexibility for Shatter, Lockdown, Boonshare, Phantasm, and Condition Mesmer.

Both Scepter and Sword work great with the shield, Shield also seems to fit into any build you want to create (though shatter Mesmer will likely still opt for torch). On it’s own, Shield provides the best defense of any offhand (except maybe torch’s stealth in PvP/WvW, but in PvE it’s defense is unmatched) and surprisingly decent damage when traited with Power Block. It also holds one of our strongest CC’s with Tides of Time and one of the few reliable ways for us to stack quickness.

Here’s a link to some PvE Chrono talk/videos

And here is a link to a PvP lockdown build thread with Chrono

There are very few situations in which chrono isn’t better than vanilla Mesmer. However, this isn’t because chrono is unbelievably strong; it’s more because vanilla Mesmer sucks.

PvE: Mesmer is flat-out awful in almost every situation. Chrono allows us to do entirely different things than normal, things that are actually strong and useful.

WvW groups: Mesmer is flat-out awful. We have veil and portal aaaaand that’s it. Chrono brings us solid aoe capabilities and utility that lets is function far more effectively.

WvW Roaming: Chrono has built in 25% movement speed and resistance to soft cc conditions. Vanilla Mesmer is painfully slow. However, this is the one area that vanilla is actually pretty solid at, you could make a case for vanilla being better here.

PvP: Vanilla Mesmer is power burst or nothing. You’re competing for the exact same role as a thief, except a thief is sorta better at it. Chrono brings far more diverse utility and mechanics that allow you to play different roles and perform in different ways.

So yeah, chrono is almost always a direct upgrade to Mesmer, but that’s primarily because base Mesmer is simply bad.

Theres a lot of great stuff you’ll be able to do with chronomancer. The shield didn’t titilate me at all until we heard that the block skill was getting buffed, but now I bought the tormented shield skin and plan to use it all the way. An offhand that gives us actual on-point defense that doesn’t revolve around stealth? Yes please! Sword/Shield will be mostly a defensive set compared to say GS, and it will make you very hard to lockdown and kill while providing consistent setup for bursts.

Chronomancer is great because it puts more bite into interrupt builds, it gives you cooldown management thats even better than Illusions traits, and the time-reset mechanic is just all around really powerful.

In general though, most classes besides maybe Ele/Thief will want to be running their elite spec in pvp. The extenstions/changes to the class mechanics make you overall more versatile and capable of doing more powerful things with a higher skill-cap.

Fay.2357:

So yeah, chrono is almost always a direct upgrade to Mesmer, but that’s primarily because base Mesmer is simply bad.

This puts a lot of pressure on the next Mesmer elite spec they come up with, needless to say…

tobascodagama.2961:

Fay.2357:

So yeah, chrono is almost always a direct upgrade to Mesmer, but that’s primarily because base Mesmer is simply bad.

This puts a lot of pressure on the next Mesmer elite spec they come up with, needless to say…

If GW2 is still active and hasn’t been superseded by a better game when they release the next expansion, I will be exceedingly surprised.

tobascodagama.2961:

Fay.2357:

So yeah, chrono is almost always a direct upgrade to Mesmer, but that’s primarily because base Mesmer is simply bad.

This puts a lot of pressure on the next Mesmer elite spec they come up with, needless to say…

Well, how about focusing on keeping improving the base mesmer. At least I see nothing but improvement on this class since June update. I have hope it can get better.

Fay.2357:

If GW2 is still active and hasn’t been superseded by a better game when they release the next expansion, I will be exceedingly surprised.

Hey, I’m just taking them at face value that the whole “Elite Specialisation” business is actually a framework for future development rather than a one-off expansion gimmick.

Time will tell if kittenting on their existing fanbase to chase after WoW exiles pays off.

I don’t really agree that chronomancer is a straight upgrade. I can think of many good builds which would not work with chronomancer (like the one I’m currently running). Giving up a trait line is not free.

However, chronomancer does add a lot of depth and new playstyles.

I feel like elite specializations should not be the only way to access weapons and I really hope they will change that. This is especially true with this first expansion where many specs are straight out trying to fix something missing in the class. This means that many of the weapons will be severely lacking in the core class or the future elite specs.

I would love if elite specs were simply a new trait line with the only difference that it also changes the class mechanics (which is why you can have only 1 elite spec active).

The “danger” is that many elite specs currently shine more by their weapons than by their traits (DH, Tempest) and would risk being completely abandoned if players could take the weapons without the trait lines.

Silverkey.2078:

I don’t really agree that chronomancer is a straight upgrade. I can think of many good builds which would not work with chronomancer (like the one I’m currently running). Giving up a trait line is not free.

However, chronomancer does add a lot of depth and new playstyles.

I feel like elite specializations should not be the only way to access weapons and I really hope they will change that. This is especially true with this first expansion where many specs are straight out trying to fix something missing in the class. This means that many of the weapons will be severely lacking in the core class or the future elite specs.

I would love if elite specs were simply a new trait line with the only difference that it also changes the class mechanics (which is why you can have only 1 elite spec active).

The “danger” is that many elite specs currently shine more by their weapons than by their traits (DH, Tempest) and would risk being completely abandoned if players could take the weapons without the trait lines.

I never said it was free, I just said it was better. If not roaming wvw, what exactly is the build you’re running better at?

Fay.2357:

Silverkey.2078:

I don’t really agree that chronomancer is a straight upgrade. I can think of many good builds which would not work with chronomancer (like the one I’m currently running). Giving up a trait line is not free.

However, chronomancer does add a lot of depth and new playstyles.

I feel like elite specializations should not be the only way to access weapons and I really hope they will change that. This is especially true with this first expansion where many specs are straight out trying to fix something missing in the class. This means that many of the weapons will be severely lacking in the core class or the future elite specs.

I would love if elite specs were simply a new trait line with the only difference that it also changes the class mechanics (which is why you can have only 1 elite spec active).

The “danger” is that many elite specs currently shine more by their weapons than by their traits (DH, Tempest) and would risk being completely abandoned if players could take the weapons without the trait lines.

I never said it was free, I just said it was better. If not roaming wvw, what exactly is the build you’re running better at?

A support build with dueling, chaos and inspiration. While chrono allows for powerful support (mostly through alacrity/quickness), it is different from the one you can do with this build (healing + boonshare). You just cannot put all together.

So my point mostly is that in many cases, it’s not necessarily better, but different. For sure, I enjoy chronomancer and it adds a very unique flavor, it does things no other professions can do (while boon + healing is very much what a guardian does).

I’ve seen yer build Silver. Chronomancer may actually still be an upgrade over Dueling.

Chaos/Inspire/Chrono with shield offers stronger healing and more unique (as in can’t be replaced by ele/guard) boonsharing.

I can’t say for certain though, the two builds I explored (lockdown and alacrity support) weren’t geared towards boonsharing but a friend of mine explored boonshare and their notes are really promising. They called it the “Boon Fatty” xD

However, a discussion on core Mesmer support vs Chrono support may be in order in a new thread.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’ve seen yer build Silver. Chronomancer may actually still be an upgrade over Dueling.

Chaos/Inspire/Chrono with shield offers stronger healing and more unique (as in can’t be replaced by ele/guard) boonsharing.

I can’t say for certain though, the two builds I explored (lockdown and alacrity support) weren’t geared towards boonsharing but a friend of mine explored boonshare and their notes are really promising. They called it the “Boon Fatty” xD

However, a discussion on core Mesmer support vs Chrono support may be in order in a new thread.

Well the update on shield is sure a candy on its own for self survivability. Also the possible might generation from CI with the shield interrupt is looking promising though I may end up using BD instead (stability). For the healing, the sad part is that the healing well CD was increased but the shared healing wasn’t so except if using mantra of pain (which would replace the wells or null field), I don’t see much healing output.

So at the end, I am not sure that I should invest in healing power for chronomancer. Either I’ll try to go celestial or somewhat more offensive.

Well yes sorry, this is not the right thread for that. Chronomancer is a very nice elite spec, and I will for sure play a lot with it at release (which is soon now ).